273 

)5 

>y 1 



ADDRESS 



TO 



THE LOTOS CLUB OF 
NEW YORK 



BY 



HOWARD ELLIOTT, 

Chief Executive 

of 

THE NEW YORiC NEW HAVEN AND HARTFORD 

and 

NEW ENGLAND 

TRANSPORTATION LINES. 



LOTOS CLUB, 

NEW YORK CITY 
December 13, 1913 



«J 



ADDRESS 



TO 



THE LOTOS CLUB OF 
NEW YORK 



BY 



HOWARD ELLIOTT, 

Chief Executive 

of 

THE NEW YORK NEW HAVEN AND HARTFORD 

and 

NEW ENGLAND 

TRANSPORTATION LINES. 



LOTOS CLUB, 
NEW YORK CITY 

December 13, 1913. 



k9R z r«i4 






Mr. President Lawrence and Members of the Lotos Club : 

Gathering around the dinner table and talking over the 
questions of the day is not a phase of modern life. It is as 
old as civilization. Much good often comes from these din- 
ners, although they impose, perhaps, a burden upon the 
speakers and often a greater burden upon the listeners. 

Early I have much sympathy with the tenets and 

Recollections high purposes of the Lotos Club, and of its 
intellectual atmosphere. I was born in 
New York City and my father before and 
after the war was intimately associated with the literary 
circles of the city, a writer of some books and a contributor 
to many magazines. I can remember very well the kindly 
face of Horace Greeley, who came to our house when I was 
a little boy. I remember meeting George William Curtis, 
and, in later days, at Cambridge, I knew James Russell 
Lowell and William Dean Howells, all of whom are held in 
grateful remembrance by this club. Then, too, in my early 
days, I heard reminiscences in my family of the Brook 
Farm of Dana and Eipley and the high-minded souls of that 
experimental community, and about Thoreau, Hawthorne, 
and Emerson. 

Lotos It is difficult for me to express fittingly my 

Guests appreciation of the compliment you pay in 

asking me to be your guest. This club has 
had for its guests Presidents of the United 
States, princes, distinguished ambassadors and cabinet offi- 
cers of our own and other countries, renowned literary men 
and painters, great travelers, scholars and publicists, and 
its influence for good cannot be estimated. 

Our It has been in my mind for some time to 

New say a word about the responsibility of the 

Citizens American citizen. There is today a burden 

upon the educated and intelligent man to 
lift up his voice in favor of the preservation of our institu- 
tions. It is a time for candor. We all recall that in Eng- 



land one hundred years ago the idea prevailed that when 
there were 100,000,000 people in this country, then would 
begin the disintegration of the republic, on the theory that 
the original Anglo-Saxon could not be assimilated with the 
blood of immigrants coming from other nations. We 
have reached the 100,000,000 mark, and the census of 1910 
states that the population of forty-two cities having more 
than one hundred thousand population is 18,751,405, or 
twenty per cent, of the population of the United States; 
and that two out of every three of the inhabitants of these 
cities are descendants of foreign-born parents. Since the 
dawn of the twentieth century more than 10,500,000 immi- 
grants have landed in the United States, and four out of 
every five immigrants had no trade. These immigrants have 
swelled the ranks of the workers in industrial centers; in 
the slums of Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia, and New 
York the foreign-born and their descendants form the fol- 
lowing percentages of population: 77, 90, 91, and 95 re- 
spectively ; and of every 100 aliens in these same cities, 40, 
47, 51, and 59 in these respective cities are illiterate. It is 
estimated that more than 7,000,000 people of Slav, Latin, 
and Asiatic blood dwell in crowded industrial centers. 
They come from lands where democracy is unknown and 
the universal franchise unheard of and government is auto- 
cratic, arbitrary, often unjust and inhuman. Do these new 
citizens understand their responsibility to a government 
' ' of the people, for the people, and by the people ' ' ? 

Lord You will remember that Lord Macauley 

Macanley stated that the test of the government of 

the United States would come when our 
national domain was piettj well occupied. 

This able English statesman and essayist, on May 23, 1857, 

wrote as follows, about the United States: 

His ''I have long been convinced that institu- 

Prophecy tions purely democratic must, sooner or 

later, destroy liberty or civilization, or 

both. In Europe, where the population is 

dense, the effect of such institutions would be almost in- 



etantaneous. What happened lately in France is an ex- 
ample. In 1848 a pure democracy was established there. 
During a short time there was reason to expect a general 
spoliation, a national bankruptcy, a new partition of the 
soil, a maximum of prices, a ruinous load of taxation laid 
on the rich for the purpose of supporting the poor in idle- 
ness. Such system would, in 20 years, have made France 
as poor and barbarous as the France of the Carlovingians. 
Happily, the danger was averted; and now there is a des- 
potism, a silent tribune, an enslaved press. Liberty is gone, 
but civilization has been saved. I have not the smallest 
doubt that if we had a purely democratic government here 
the effect would be the same. Either the poor would 
plunder the rich, and civilization would perish; or order 
and prosperity would be saved by a strong military gov- 
ernment, and liberty would perish. You may think that 
your country enjoys an exemption from these evils. I will 
frankly own to you that I am of a very different opinion. 
Your fate I believe to be certain, though it is deferred by a 
physical cause. As long as you have a boundless extent 
of fertile and unoccupied land, your laboring population 
will be far more at ease than the laboring population of the 
Old Vv'^orld, and, while that is the case, the Jefferson poli- 
tics may continue to exist without causing any fatal cal- 
amity. But the time will come when New England will be 
as thickly peopled as Old England. Wages will be as low, 
and will fluctuate as much with you as with us. You will 
have your Manchesters and Birminghams, and in those 
Manchesters and Birminghams hundreds of thousands of 
artisans will assuredly be sometimes out of work. Then 
your institutions will be fairly brought to the test. Dis- 
tress everywhere makes the laborer mutinous and discon- 
tented, and inclines him to listen with eagerness to agi- 
tators who tell him that it is monstrous iniquity that one 
man should have a million while another cannot get a full 
meal. * * * It is quite plain that your Government 
will never be able to restrain a distressed and discontented 
majority. For with you the majority is the government 
and has the rich, who are always a minority, absolutely at 
its mercy. The day will come when in the State of New 



York a multitude of people, none of whom has had more 
than half a breakfast, or expects to have more than half 
a dinner, will choose a legislature. Is it possible to doubt 
what sort of a legislature will be chosen? On one side is a 
statesman preaching patience, respect for vested rights, 
strict observance of public faith. On the other is a dema- 
gogue ranting about the tyranny of capitalists and usurers, 
and asking why anybody should be permitted to drink 
champagne and to ride in a carriage, while thousands of 
honest folks are in want of necessaries. Which of the two 
candidates is likely to be preferred by a workingman who 
hears his children cry for more bread? I seriously appre- 
hend that you will, in such a season of adversity as I have 
described, do things which will prevent prosperity from 
returning; that you will act like a people who should in a 
year of scarcity devour all the seed corn, and thus make 
the next a year not of scarcity, but of absolute famine. 
There will be, I fear, spoliation. The spoliation will in- 
crease the distress. The distress will produce fresh spoli- 
ation. There is nothing to stop you. Your Constitution is 
all sail and no anchor. As I said before, when a society 
has entered on its downward progress, either civilization or 
liberty must perish. Either some Caesar or Napoleon will 
seize the reins of government with a strong hand, or your 
Republic will be as fearfully plundered and laid waste by 
barbarians in the twentieth century as the Roman Empire 
was in the fifth; with this difference, that the Huns and 
Vandals who ravaged the Roman Empire came from with- 
out, and that your Huns and Vandals will have been en- 
gendered within your own country and by your own insti- 
tutions." 

Good I do not agree with all that Lord Macauley 

Sense to says because I believe the good sense of all 

Prevail the American people will solve their prob- 

lems, but it is well to heed what he says 
and exercise good sense vigorously and continuously so as 
to prevent the conditions described by him. 

James Bryce, formerly British Ambassador at Wash- 
ington, in his work, ''The American Commonwealth", 
states : 



What ''The coming of these humble suppliants 

Bryce for entrance into the land of a people rich 

Says and strong cannot but affect that people. 

What changes in the character and habits 
of the American people will this influx of new elements make, 
elements wholly diverse, not only in origin, but in ideas 
and traditions, and scarcely less diverse from the Irish and 
Teutonic immigrants of previous years than from the men 
of predominantly English stock, who inhabited the country 
before the Irish or continental Teutons arrived*? This is 
the crucial question in which every study of the immigrant 
problem leads up to. It is a matter of grave import for the 
world, seeing that it is virtually a new phenomenon in 
world history, because no large movement of the races of 
mankind from one region of the earth to another has ever 
occurred under conditions at all resembling these. But it 
is primarily momentous for the United States, and that all 
the more so because these new immigrants go to swell the 
class which already causes some disquietude, the class of 
unskilled laborers, the poorest, the most ignorant, and the 
most unsettled part of the population. Tbat there is 
ground for anxiety in the presence of this vast and grow^ 
ing multitude of men ignorant and liable to be misled can- 
not be denied. Let it not be forgotten that a low standard 
of living is an economic disease. ' ' 



Prof. Frank Julian Warne, Secretary of the New York 
State Immigration Commission, and Special Expert on the 
Foreign Born Population, United States Census of 1910, 
in his book entitled "The Immigrant Invasion," says: 

Prof. Wame's ** Never before in the history of this people, 
Views with the possible exception of the Revolu- 

tionary and Civil War periods, have the 
underpaid and ignorant laborers of the Old 
World been called upon by the inexorable logic of economic 
forces to decide so momentous a question as the election of 
a President of the United States and all others in author- 
ity." 



Prof. Warne believes that the only course is to restrict 
immigration and take an inventory of those already here 
and who must be raised to a higher standard of living and 
trained for their duty as citizens. 

William WiUiams, former United States Commissioner 
of Immigration at New York, in his work, ''The New Im- 
migration — Some Unfavorable Features and Possible 
Remedies, " remarks: 

Mr. WiUiams' ''The most important effects of immigra- 
Prediction tion today are the racial effects. They con- 

stitute a question not between the citizens 
and immigrants of today, but between the 
citizens' children and grandchildren. We owe our present 
civilization and standing amongst nations chiefly to people 
of a type widely different from that of those now coming 
here in such numbers. The probable effect on the future of 
this country of the millions of further immigrants repre- 
senting the bad elements of Russia, Austria and Southern 
Italy, who are sure to come here during the next few years, 
if permitted to do so, should be made the subject of exhaus- 
tive scientific research, which might or might not show that 
to maintain our institutions and standards of civilization 
substantially as they are it will be necessary to limit this 
new immigration in some manner far more radical than any 
hereinbefore suggested. ' * 

Dr. Prescott F. Hall, Secretary of the Immigration Re- 
striction League, in his work, "Immigration and Its Effects 
Upon the United States, ' ' says : 

Dr. Hall on "The enormous political power which can 
the Foreign be exercised by the foreign-bom is shown 
Vote by the fact that of the males of voting age 

over one-quarter are foreign born, and that 
nearly three-fifths of these have been naturalized. Indeed, 
the foreign vote of two generations hence is larger than the 
native vote of native parentage. One grave danger lies in 
the liberality with which the ballot is given foreigners. ' ' 

8 



I have given these quotations to emphasize the respons- 
ibility of the educated citizen. Personally, I am opposed to 
a too rigid restriction of immigration because the country 
needs strong men and women to cut down the forests, 
to reforest the land, to dig the coal, to build good roads, 
and to do the many kinds of work needed under modern con- 
ditions of life. Particularly does the country need those 
who are willing to clear the land and to till the soil and do 
the work on the farm, the ranch, and the orchard, which is 
so vitally necessary if this country is to improve and 
cheapen its food supply. Is it not wiser to permit these 
strangers to come to us and then teach them the duties and 
responsibilities they owe to the country that gives them 
the great opportunities that this country furnishes rather 
than to turn them away? Most of these new citizens are 
not students. Seldom do many of them read even news- 
papers. As Stevenson would say, ''Life is their volume." 
When they first come hard work and discomfort is often 
their lot, but there are countless examples of success far 
greater than they could have achieved in their foreign 
homes. A large proportion are receptive and subject to the 
influences that surround them. They may become a menace, 
but they can be made a boon to the country if their good 
qualities are developed and the bad ones eliminated. It is 
for the Lotos Club and bodies of similar cultivation and 
force to say which. We ought not to neglect the newcomers 
to our shores. Threats of the terrors of the law will not do 
all that is needed. By individual appeal and personal re- 
sponsibility must these new peoples in our land be taught 
the power for good of this great nation. 

Consider the great growth of the population and the 
change of the character of it since 1870; the marvelous 
growth in material wealth, and remember that much of the 
brains and energy of the country have been very busily 
engaged since the Civil War in the wonderful material de- 
velopment of the country and that possibly not enough 
attention has been paid to some of the fundamentals of 
national life. Our prosperity has increased the complica- 
tions of government, and the close attention given by our 
people to business has diverted the personal attention of 

9 



many from public affairs, and there is not the feeling of 
interest and responsibility about them that characterized 
the American people when there were fewer people and less 
wealth. 

Vast In the year 1870 the estimated wealth of 

Increase this country was $24,054,814,806. In 1900 

in Wealth it had increased to $88,517,306,775, and in 

1904, the last year for which it has been 
computed, to $107,104,192,410. Between 1890 and 1900 the 
increase was $23,480,215,588, or 36 per cent., while in the 
four years from 1900 to 1904 the increase was $18,586,885,- 
635, or about 21 per cent. In 1870 the wealth per capita 
was $624 ; in 1904 it was $1,318. Goldsmith says : 

''111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, 
where wealth accumulates and men decay. ' ' 
Wealth has accumulated in a phenomenal manner in this 
country, but we cannot, and must not, permit a decadence 
of our citizens. 

Failure Has not the time arrived when, by indi- 

to Vote vidual effort, we must see to it that the 

so-called professional politicians do not 
control our foreign-born citizens or their 
immediate descendants ? Are those of us who are fortunate 
enough to have received a good education, to have a little 
more than actual bread and butter, to have some traditions 
about the United States doing all that we should, as citizens, 
to help? In Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachu- 
setts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, 
Pennsylvania and Delaware about thirty per cent, of those 
entitled to vote did not take advantage of the franchise. In 
the country at large about thirty-five per cent, failed to take 
their share of the responsibility of selecting a ruler. In a 
number of Northwestern states and cities for which I have 
the figures, in 1910, when there was not the interest of a 
Presidential election, from 45.9% to 59.1% of those having 
the right to vote did not do so. These figures show that 

10 



from 21% to 33% of those entitled to vote decide who shall 
hold office and make and administer the laws under which 
all must work and live. This relatively small proportion 
of voters who make the majority in an election enables the 
boss to work his will and create conditions which we all 
may deplore but which we submit to passively. 

Force of In the long run, all great questions affect- 

Public Opinion ing the national welfare are settled by the 
force of public opinion, but is that force 
properly and fairly reflected when so large 
a proportion of those holding the franchise fail to exercise 
it? As educated men are we doing our full duty and en- 
couraging others to do theirs in making intelligent use of 
the great privilege of selecting and voting for those that are 
to rule us 1 

A group of men discussed several evenings ago the talk 
about old political nostrums. Some believed that the in- 
itiative, referendum and the recall of officials and of judicial 
decisions had been revived in recent years by some political 
leaders in the hope of remedying or readjusting political 
conditions. Others in the group believed these doctrines 
had been revived for personal ends. 

Neglect It was the opinion of several in the group 

of th,e that much of the dissatisfaction with politi- 

Primaries cal conditions had come from voters who 

had neglected their opportunities to 
straighten out affairs themselves. They referred to the 
fact, or what they believed to be a fact, that this is a dele- 
gated government — not a representative government nor a 
democratic government, but a delegated government and 
nothing more. They told how merchants, professional men 
and many others engaged in the activities of life failed year 
in and year out to attend the primaries of their parties. 
They insisted that the primary is the unit of government. 
One in the gathering was a merchant who likes to take a 
hand in politics ; another was a lawyer, another was an im- 
porter, and they admitted that they seldom, if ever, at- 
tended the primaries of their parties, and in remaining 

11 



away had left the control of those primaries in the hands 
of professional politicians, and thus these professional poli- 
ticians had, through the voters' own negligence, been dele- 
gated to represent them in making nominations for local, 
state, and eventually national offices, as well as in the prep- 
aration and adoption of state and national platforms. 

Proposed One of the lawyers in the gathering insisted 

New that there was only one remedy which 

Amendment would compel the business, professional 
and working men of the country to destroy 
this alleged delegated system of government. He declared 
that this remedy consisted entirely and only in an amend- 
ment to the Constitution of the United States which would 
disfranchise a voter who did not attend the primaries. He 
thereupon drew up the following proposed amendment to 
Article XV of the Constitution of the United States : 

''Eesolved, By the Senate and House of Represent- 
atives of the United States of America, in Congress 
assembled, two-thirds of both houses concurring, that 
the following article be proposed to the Legislatures of 
the several States as an amendment to the Constitution 
of the United States, which article, when ratified by 
three-fourths of the said Legislatures, shall be valid to 
all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitu- 
tion, namely: 



Aeticle XV. 

''SECTio]sr 3. — Every male citizen of the United 
States, of the age of 21 years, shall have the right to 
vote at any State or general election, providing he 
shall have first voted at the primary in his district next 
preceding such election." 

This lawyer believed if such an amendment could be 
introduced and passed in Congress at Washington this 
Winter it would forever do away with the system of dele- 
gated government. 

12 



We I am not enough of a student of public af- 

Must fairs to have any opinion as to the wisdom 

Vote of such an amendment and I have no cure 

for the difficulty. I only want to point out 
that it seems to me unfortunate that a more intelligent use 
of the franchise is not made, and that the educated man does 
not work harder to help his less fortunate brother to come 
to right conclusions. This failure to use the franchise, the 
neglect of the educated man to do his full duty as a citizen 
and to take some time away from his business for his civic 
duties, have a relation to some of the economic difficulties 
now confronting the country, and creating a period of un- 
certainty and unrest. 

Let me refer for a moment to a recent speech by a mem- 
ber of this club, Samuel Untermyer. His declaration that 
a halt should be called upon further governmental investi- 
gations of past doings of corporations is an expression of 
a growing sentiment among intelligent citizens, and reflects 
the feeling that greater care should be used in making and 
administering the laws. 



Don't It has been said, "Criminologists hold that 

Always imprisoning a man fo'r a crime punishes 

Punish him but does not augment his value as a 

member of society." Perhaps Mr. Unter- 
myer had that thought in mind when he made his address to 
the Economic Club of Springfield several evenings ago. I do 
not agree with all that Mr. Untermyer said, but the present 
day situation about certain kinds of business, railroad and 
otherwise, is illustrated by an incident that occurred in the 
West some twenty years ago. 

Bill Yoldm was an excellent fellow who kept a livery 
stable and set up to be a great horse expert. One day, 
Bill had a colt coming in which he was going to break, and 
a number of friends were invited to witness the perform- 
ance. The spectators sat on the fence while Bill trained 
the colt. It took him about an hour and a half, and when 
he got through the colt was dead. 

13 



Bill ¥okim's Bill Yokim's experience, I fear, may be re- 
Remedy peated if we remain passive and permit 
our politicians, perhaps I should say, rul- 
ers, to keep on regulating or training the 
railroad and other forms of public service corporations; 
they will be well trained, but they will be dead. Some day, 
possibly not before the millenium, the people will 
reach the conclusion that there are only two ways 
of treating railroad business. One is to treat it 
as a function of government, and the other is to 
treat it as commerce, or business subject to reasonable 
regulation. There is no middle ground. It is impossible, 
fii the long run, to persuade private capital to invest in rail- 
roads if politicians and governmental bureaucrats are to ex- 
ercise all the functions of ownership and management. It 
may be in the power of the government to destroy a part or 
the whole of the private capital which has heretofore been 
invested in the railroads, on the theory that the investor 
was to have some voice in managing his business, but it 
is not in the power of the government to make individuals 
repeat any such foolish experiment, and they will not do it. 



Dislocation While, as I say, I do not accept all of Mr. 
Should Untermyer's suggestions in his Spring- 

Oease field address, I do believe most earnestly 

that the period of dislocation should cease 
and all hands be given an opportunity for constructive 
work which will help the welfare of the people, of security 
holders, and the development of the nation. 

Is it for the best interest of all to punish the railroads 
and other corporations for misdeeds that were not con- 
sidered wrong in the light of the law as then understood, 
or of public opinion at the time the deeds were done! Is 
it necessary for a continued flood of legislation against the 
railroads and against all corporations? 

14 



Flood of It may be said that in the matter of legis- 

Legislation lation the railroads suffer in common with 

all other enterprises and with every indi- 
vidual in the country from the American 
passion for legislation and their belief that a new law will 
cure any and all troubles incident to human life. How pro- 
found that passion is can be gathered from a comparison of 
the bills introduced into and passed by the English Parlia- 
ment and by our national Senate and House. At West- 
minster, during the ten years ending with 1909, there were 
introduced and considered 6,251 measures, of which 3,882 
became law; at Washington, during the same period, there 
were considered 146,471 different bills, of which no less 
than 16,000 became law. In forty-two State Legislatures, 
in session since January of the present year, there were 
introduced 1,395 bills affecting the operation of railroads. 
This is almost five times as many as were introduced in 
the legislatures of 1912, and three times as many as those 
introduced in the year 1911. In 1912, only nineteen State 
Legislatures met, which partly accounts for the lessened 
activity of the legislatures that year. But, as an indica- 
tion of how rapidly the tide of railway legislation is rising, 
in 1911 there were fourteen bills introduced per legislative 
session; in 1912, fifteen, while in the present year there 
have been thirty-three such measures per legislative ses- 
sion. Of the 1,395 bills introduced in the present year 
affecting railroad operation, 230 have become law. This 
is practically the same proportion as in the previous year 
when forty-eight out of 292 bills were enacted. The bills 
introduced covered almost every conceivable subject — for 
instance: 107 full crew bills were introduced, of which 14 
passed ; other bills took up hospital and relief departments, 
burning of weeds, speed of dead freight trains, make-up of 
freight and passenger trains, signals, crossings and loco- 
motive headlights, block signals and steel cars ; while on the 
subject of railroad trespassing, for which the railroads 
have been asldng for relief to reduce accident liability, out 
of 65 such bills introduced only six became laws. 



15 



A You probably all remember the story at- 

Lynching tributed to early days in Arkansas, about 

Story tlie man who was lynched for stealing a 

horse. After the ceremony was over and the poor fellow 
was cut down, it was found that another man had stolen 
the horse. The lynchers were in trouble, but they mustered 
up their courage and took the body to the little cabin where 
the unfortunate widow lived. Pushing it through the door, 
the spokesman said: ''Here's your husband, marm. We 
thought he stole a horse and we hung him. It's our mistake 
and the laugh's on us." In the very earnest desire that 
every right thinking man has for improving living and 
business conditions, reform and corrective movements 
should be undertaken with great care and moderation so 
that the country will not wake up some day and find that 
they have lynched some important form of business and it 
is "their mistake," but the laugh will not be on any one in 
that case! 

Responsibility The press, authors, scholars, and publicists 
of the have much responsibility to the public for 

Press what they present to that public. As one 

of your distinguished members, Chester S. 
Lord, has pointed out in his lecture as a Eegent of the Uni- 
versity of the State, before the Columbia School of Jour- 
nalism, "Everybody of any account reads the newspapers, 
and I am sorry to say that the great mass of the community 
read little else. I judge this to be true largely by compari- 
son with other publications. Take the magazine, for in- 
stance, which for numbers of readers ranks next to the 
newspapers. About 4,000,000 magazines are printed in this 
city each month for circulation all over the United States 
and the world, of which approximately one-eighth, or 500,- 
000, are sold in this community. A million and a half news- 
papers are printed in New York every morning; another 
million and a half are printed every afternoon. We have 
then 500,000 magazines sold here every month against 
3,000,000 newspapers sold every day, or 90,000,000 news- 
papers sold every month." Some figures obtained a few 
years ago showed that the printing of newspapers and 

16 



periodicals in this country has grown from 11,314 publica- 
tions in 1880, issuing 2,067,848,209 copies a year, to 22,603 
a year or so ago, issuing 10,600,000,000 copies a year. Each 
one of these publications has some effect, good or bad, on 
someone, and particularly on the newcomer, who knows 
little about our institutions. The schools of the country 
are teaching daily about 20,000,000 boys and girls, and every 
individual interested in the welfare of his country should 
exercise some influence in seeing that common sense, in- 
dustry, self-denial, and patriotism are taught as well as 
some other things, many of which are useless to the child 
in his or her future. 



Faith This influx of those who do not understand 

in the the United States, the multitude of laws, 

Future the half teaching of many young people of 

some of the great fundamental principles 
oi* living, the head lines in the press, the neglect by many 
to do their duty as citizens have tended to produce some 
of the conditions feared by Lord Macauley, but I have great 
faith in the future. My business has been such that I have 
traveled many times in the last twenty years between tht 
Atlantic, the Mississippi Valley, the Rocky Mountains, and 
Puget Sound. To make those trips and to see the farms, 
the small towns mth neat and prosperous little houses, and 
the growing cities, restores one's confidence when the 
attacks on and criticisms of some of our affairs by both poli- 
ticians and the press seem to imply that the country is 
going to the dogs. The country is not going to smash ; it is 
going to keep on going forward. Business methods are im- 
proving every year — there is a higher standard today 
among those engaged in administering the great business 
concerns and public service corporations than there was ten 
years ago. As a class, the men in that work are as honest, 
high-minded, earnest, and patriotic as those in any other 
line of activity in the United States, not excepting govern- 
mental service. 

17 



Higher This class of men has done much in the last 

Business twenty -five years to create the conditions 

Standards that enable the United States to hold the 

proud position that she does. They now owe 
it to themselves and to the country to devote some of their 
time, ability and energy to explaining and defending them- 
selves and in telling the people the truth about their busi- 
ness. In the long run, the people of the United States are 
not unjust, but they must know the real truth or in striving 
to bring about reforms they may act as to upset and injure 
business conditions in such a way as to defeat the very 
results they wish. We all remember how nearly the silver 
question plunged the country into real distress. The same 
unthinking course towards business may produce a like 
result. It is very difficult, in this large and complicated 
land of ours, to have the same things considered in the same 
way and at the same time by all the people. Hence the 
importance of having the educated citizen use his influence 
to present the facts correctly at all times. 



Individual Complaint was made at one time that busi- 

Eesponsifoility ness was too much engaged in politics, and 
perhaps it was, but now it can be said 
justly that politics is engaged entirely too 
much in business, and that such policy tends to take away 
the self-reliance and initiative of the American man who 
has done such a good work in making this United States 
what it is. So I repeat again that if we are to avoid some 
of those difficulties that Lord Macauley and the others re- 
ferred to speak of, we must, each one of us as American 
citizens, do a little more of the work of a citizen and not 
leave the work of deciding what our government is to be to 
those who are ignorant, unthinking, and sometimes actually 
dishonest. 

Two dinners will always remain cherished memories 
with me. One was given to me by officers and men of the 
Northern Pacific when I retired from the Presidency of that 
great property and came here to help solve this compli- 

18 



cated New England situation. There were 240 men at the 
dinner, from junior clerks receiving $50.00 a month to Gen- 
eral Managers, Counsels, and Vice-Presidents, receiving 
$10,000, $15,000, and $20,000 a year. There were men from 
all classes in the service and 18 states and 35 cities were 
represented. That dinner represented the size and ramifi- 
cations of the great transportation agencies of the country, 
and the meeting was a tribute of which any man should be 
proud. 

Two The other dinner of which I am equally 

Dinners proud is this one, and most heartily do I 

thank you again for it. This dinner 
represents a different set of men and dif- 
ferent activities, but those in this room have more diverse 
powers for helpful influence in shaping the affairs of the 
country than the men at the other dinner. The men at 
both dinners have an opportunity, each one in the niche 
fate has allotted to him, and a duty to use his influence just 
a little more than he does to help train the many new citi- 
zens to realize their duties and responsibilities as well as 
to care for himself and his family. There is a favorite 
quotation of mine that I think has an inspiration for every 
patriotic American, and should be taken to heart by him at 
this time, when great, silent changes seem to be taking place 
in the character of our people and of our methods of gov- 
ernment : 

''Say not the days are evil — Who's to blame? 
And fold the hands and acquiesce — shame! 
Stand up, speak out and bravely in God's name." 



19 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



012 051 480 5 



